COVID by the Numbers—February 21 Edition
Last week, Walpole had 7 active cases. We are down to 5 now. New cases are down marginally—4 this week, down from 5 last week. However, we are still getting new cases regularly, so we have more work to do.
In Cheshire County, our seven day average of reported cases per 100,000 went from 19.2 last week up to 20.5. This makes Cheshire County just slightly higher than Los Angeles County, and significantly higher than the state of California, which makes me think there is room for improvement. Some of our county rate is driven by an outbreak over at Franklin Pierce in Rindge, but new cases are still popping up all over the county. There were 8 new cases in Keene yesterday. Active cases in the county went from 127 back up to 135. Sadly, we have lost another citizen to the pandemic, but that is down from 3 deaths last week.
Statewide, the seven-day average of reported cases has gone up from 25.7 to27.9. Active cases have gone from 3,365 down to 2,940. Hospitalizations have gone from 126 down to 109. We lost 29 citizens statewide last week; this week the number was down to 23.
It worries me that although our numbers are coming down, sloooowly, as of February 21st, NH still has COVID rates of reported cases higher than every other state in the country except New York, Rhode Island, New Jersey, North Carolina, and South Carolina. We can and should be doing better than this.
I am off to two days of House Sessions, meeting in person at the Bedford Sportsplex, where we are told that we can be seated 10-12 feet apart rather than just 6 feet. As always we are told that those members who refuse masks (there were 80 or so last time we counted) are going to be kept away from those who follow CDC guidelines. We have been told this every time the House has met since last March. Hope springs eternal that this time it will actually be true.
Please keep on taking good care of yourselves, and each other. Don’t let down your guard. Be careful out there. There is still work to do.
Keep well.
~Representative Lucy Weber
The Walpolean 
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